A friendly belated Hello from Germany

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Good morning,

I signed up over a year ago and promptly forgot to introduce myself. Since I can’t find an official introduction thread (ISTR one where newbies were promised a horse? Got too costly, eh?) I hope this is the right place to let you know who I am.

Nothing too wild: Early 40s office slave if currently house-bound, with a deep passion for movies going back to the earliest days of cinema, so Café Society will be my natural habitat. My soft spot is european, especially Italian genre cinema from the 60s and 70s, so if anyone needs help identifiying some giallo, poliziotesco or spaghetti western, just let me know (I do draw the line at cannibal flics, though), but my tastes are broad, tolerant and not really sophisticated. Not so much into blockbusters, but horror (preferably of the creepy and/or campy sort), exploitation of any kind, western, thrillers, monsters (I adore Ray Harryhausen and even shed a tear when he passed), heist/caper movies, it’s all good. Accordingly, I love movie scores and even though I’m somewhat of a hermit, I had the great pleasure of seeing Maestro Morricone perform live this spring (anyone unsure whether the old guy is still worth the price of a ticket: GO! GO! GO! if you have the chance, you won’t regret it!).

I used to be a real bookworm but sadly, due to health problems, my attention span has greatly decreased. Thankfully, my old faves Oscar Wilde and William Blake still get through and I hope for a change for the better in that department. Currently starting (for the third time, sigh) Harryhausens “An animated Life” and saving up for Tim Lucas’ highly praised but expensive biography of Mario Bava so I can at least look a pretty pictures.:slight_smile:

Apart from that, I’m a lesbian, vegetarian and atheist, if that’s important. Open (some say blunt), pretty laid back except for a few hot buttons. Humble servant to a sweet, fat cat. I’m aware that my language skills leave a lot to be desired, but I promise I’ll try my best to be somewhat coherent. Mostly reclusive, friendly and polite (ahem, despite stumbling into my first thread a few days ago…I swear I’m not an oaf! Just German.;))

So, in case I’ve left anything out that interests you, please ask away. If a kind soul could also tell me what exactly constitutes NSFW around here, I’d greatly appreciate it. I suppose full frontal nudity and buckets of blood are right out, but since it’s an American board after all, I have a nagging suspicion that I already messed up when linking to a record cover depicting a (blurry) naked breast and I’d really hate to cause anyone distress.:o

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It’s not exactly your movie category but this mobster/prison movie was really really good:
A prophet http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235166/?ref_=rvi_tt

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Hi Sasori.

I’m curious about one thing: Nearly every single time that I see someone apologize in advance for their English language skills, they’re German. Any idea why?

Were you born in East or West Germany?

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@Robert163 Oh yes, that was a good one. That murder scene (and the aftermath) really went home with me! Audiard has made another good movie that I know of called Rust and Bone. Not your typical romance for sure!

@MichaelEmouse I can only speak for myself, but while many Germans are somewhat proud of our prolific synchronisation industry (subtitles are very, very rare), we’re also aware that this means any Scandinavian toddler’s English is better than ours. Also, since our own language is quite stilted and convuluted, we tend to get caught up when trying to translate. In my case, it’s even worse, since I’m from a tiny federal state in the deep south-west that was occupied by France after WWII. One remnant of that is few high schools in this state teach English as first foreign language, so you typically either start with French or Latin. So, I have seven years of French (even more complicated than German), five years of Latin (not really useful for conversation if you’re not a priest) and only two years of English under my belt. And we know about our accent. Trust me, we know. :smiley:

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Welcome Sasori.
Your written English skills are quite apparent, better than some native speakers.
I just wanted to say “Hello” back to you.

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Willkommen! I can safely say if you had not identified yourself as native German, nobody would have figured it out from what you have written. Other than a spelling error (convoluted), it was better than some on this board can muster. I spent three years at the American Consulate in Frankfurt and traveled over much of Germany. Sadly, I never had the opportunity to study the language. My father’s family came from the Mecklenburg-Schwerin region.

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I also wouldn’t have guessed that English isn’t your native language.

How is French more complicated than German?
Have you noticed differences in how German, French, English and Latin causes people to think?

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Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome.

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Sasori–

I think the welcoming prize nowadays is squid?

MARIO BAVA? I wuvs me some Bava-man.

German is a fun language; it’s like LEGOs–stick two words together and make a third word. Kugel + Schreiber = Pen.

As far as your English, Hawkeye Pierce (MAS*H) said it best:

Frank, the R-E-D speaks English better than Y-O-U. :slight_smile:

(not insinuating you’re RED)

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Awww, you’re all too kind!

Chefguy
Heh, I went to vocational school for book dealers ages ago at Frankfurt-Seckbach. But don’t fret about the language, it’s gotten even worse since the so-called Spelling Reform of 1996 (again reformed in 2004…and in 2006, oh how I wish I was kidding) and now every foreigner brave enough to take up lessons will be hopelessly lost when he wants to enjoy some nice book published before that. Since these reforms have never been thoroughly accepted by the population, nobody knows when to capitalize and when not to anymore or when to use the letter “ß” or when to hyphenate. It’s gotten so bad, even school teachers throw up their hands in the air and accept various spellings in tests. And please don’t take this the wrong way, but be glad your father emigrated. Parts of what now is called Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have unfortunately become no-go areas for non-autochton Germans, with high unemployment rates and a horrible rise of the new right or even flat-out nazism. It worries me a great deal, to be honest.

MichaelEmouse
Well, most native English speakers complain about German articles, but in French you even have one more, the indefinite article “des”. If you have your pronounciation down, you can easily guess the spelling of a German word when listening, while the French tend to pronounce only half of their letters. It’s also more difficult when chosing the right pronoun if you’re not sure whether at least one of your objects is masculine. And don’t get me started on these pesky accents! At my final exam I just sprinkled them all over the paper with an imaginary salt shaker and vowed never to bother with that vernacular again…which I deeply regretted when discovering Baudelaire and Jean-Pierre Melville, but you can’t have everything.

So, regarding your second question, I can’t really think in French (or Latin, though it often comes handy when stumbling across some unknown word in English, French or Italian), but I’ve found the most striking difference is that a Frenchman says what’s important first and then you learn about the circumstances, while a German will have you wade through a labyrinth of multi-clause sentences until you know what he’s up to. The English sit somewhere in the middle until, alas, they write legal documents. Everytime I come across such a monster, I have to bring out the hack saw! There are also subtle nuances regarding meaning of colours. In German, the colour yellow is linked to envy, while in Italian it’s linked to fear. In English, green is linked to jealousy, while in German it’s linked to hope. Red, however, mainly symbolizes fear in German and passion in French. But since these are all indoeuropean languages circling around the accusative, I don’t think there are fundamental differences in thinking, though. On the contrary, I’m often surprised how similar many metaphors are.

Quicksilver, thank you! There are exacty three musicals I like: Hedwig and the angry Inch, The Wicker Man (what?) and Cabaret!

Burpo the wonder mutt
A squid. A squid?! Here I come all the way across the pond and all I get is a measly squid! A nice, fat octopus is too much to ask, hm?

But from one Bava-rian to the other, have you seen his Rabid Dogs yet? A fine paragon of a terror flic with a really shocking ending for its time. For some legal reason or other, it didn’t get released until 1997 and Stelvio Cipriani’s supposedly magnificent funky score is still not included on the DVD. Here’s a sample of what it should have sounded like. Makes a nice back-to-back with Richard Grieco’s (Ferocious) Beast with a Gun, in which Helmut Berger gives an absolutely incredible performance. Seriously, it’s impossible to take your eyes off him. I’d go as far as describing the final scenes as iconic and in case you ever wondered what movie Bridget Fonda was enjoying in Jackie Brown, there you go.

About that Kugelschreiber. Yeah, sure it’s fun, but just compare how many letters we need to describe such a banal little thing. Which is why everybody calls it a Kuli. But that’s nothing…wait until you have to register your Dampfschifffahrtskapitänspatent (which had one “f” less before the reform…) and then report back to me! :smiley:

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My father wasn’t the immigrant; it was his grandfather, who came over in 1842. Sad to hear that the radical right is gaining ground. It’s a problem over here as well, but without the gruesome history that Germany has.

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The quote function is not working for me, so you’ll have to guess which of the things previosly posted that I am referring to.
Your English is better than mine, and I’ve been speaking it my whole life. You sound smart, try not to make me look dumb, ok?
Welcome to SDMB!

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<snip>

There might also be ice cream; I’m not in charge of refreshments–I’m on lookout detail.

LOOKOUT! :smiley:

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Hi Sasori. Welcome. I hope you’ll enjoy our wonderful community. We have a great group of regulars here, which you probably know if you’ve been lurking already.

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Hello **Sasori ** and a friendly welcome from a fellow German doper, I’m always glad to hear from a new fellow countryman/woman and I’m sure you’ll fit right in here. There are some more krauts on the boards, and if you feel like it, join us on our next German Dopefest in Bonn. I gather that you’re from the Saarland, so the distance to Bonn will be not that far.

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I think German people are just too hard on themselves when it comes to their English skills. Usually they seem just as good as Scandinavians, who don’t apologize.

But, in the spirit of this message board, I will point out that the word is “choosing,” not “chosing.” And I’ve never seen a hyphen in “Bavarian” :stuck_out_tongue: